Michael, Manny, Money and the Dream: Whatever won’t be won’t be

One of my favorite hypothetical sports arguments of all-time is who would have won a Finals matchup between Michael Jordan’s Bulls and Hakeem Olajuwon’s Houston Rockets. Strictly speaking, it’s an argument nobody can prove hence my use of the word hypothetical.

In 1993, Michael Jordan basically decided that nobody in the league could cover him anymore. He retired from the NBA and embarked upon a quest to play professional baseball.

We all know this.

But the tragedy of that decision, aside from not being able to see His Airness play professional hoops for nearly two years of his prime, is that we never got so see his Bulls play the Houston Rockets, the team that took full advantage of Michael’s absence by winning back-to-back championships while he was gone.

Those were very good teams.

Jordan homers, of which I am one just not when it comes to this argument, blindly proclaim that Chicago would have beaten Houston both of those years. Of course those are merely opinions, one of sports’ greatest ‘What If’ questions that will never be answered.

But that’s not the point of this piece.

The point is that those two Finals match-ups are something we never got to see.

Neither is the boxing match that could have single-handedly renewed worldwide interest in the sport: Pacquiao-Mayweather.